My dear dear lord, The purest treasure mortal times afford Is spotless reputation; that away, Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

If any, so by love refin'd, That he soules language understood, And by good love were growen all minde, Within convenient distance stood, 25 He (though he knew not which soule spake, Because both meant, both spake the same) Might thence a new concoction take, And part farre purer then he came.
— from The Poems of John Donne, Volume 1 (of 2) Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts by John Donne

If Age is such a boon, good land!
— from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

Well, sir, where was I?—O—well, we no sooner knew each other, than, after many hearty shakes by the hand, we agreed to go to an alehouse and take a pot, and by good luck the beer was some of the best I have met with since I have been in town.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

Ang bungì gibúhat lang tiliáwan sa iskuylahan, The harelip was made the butt of ridicule in school.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

The priest listened attentively, but gave little advice.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I look in with loving eyes, For folded here, with well-known care, A goodly gathering lies, The record of a peaceful life— Gifts to gentle child and girl, A bridal gown, lines to a wife, A tiny shoe, a baby curl.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

They also bore golden lettered banners.
— from The Story of the Woman's Party by Inez Haynes Gillmore

none Belize OAS-initiated Agreement on the Framework for Negotiations and Confidence Building Measures saw cooperation in repatriation of Guatemalan squatters and other areas, but Guatemalan land and maritime claims in Belize and the Caribbean Sea remain unresolved; the Line of Adjacency created under the 2002 Differendum serves in lieu of the contiguous international boundary to control squatting in the sparsely inhabited rain forests of Belize's border region; Honduras claims Belizean-administered Sapodilla Cays in its constitution but agreed to a joint ecological park under the Differendum Benin in September 2007, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) intervened to attempt to resolve the dispute over two villages along the Benin-Burkina Faso border that remain from 2005 ICJ decision; much of Benin-Niger boundary, including tripoint with Nigeria, remains undemarcated; in 2005, Nigeria ceded thirteen villages to Benin, but border relations remain strained by rival cross-border gang clashes; talks continue between Benin and Togo on funding the Adjrala hydroelectric dam on the Mona River
— from The 2008 CIA World Factbook by United States. Central Intelligence Agency

He laments the general decline in splendour of dress, and declares that thirty years before not a Templar, or decently-dressed young man, but wore a rich gold-laced hat and scarlet waistcoat, with a broad gold lace, also laced frocks for morning dress.
— from A Book of the Play Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character by Dutton Cook

Finally, there is always the chance that he may win some magnate's favor, and by good luck or merit rise to greater things.
— from Life on a Mediaeval Barony A Picture of a Typical Feudal Community in the Thirteenth Century by William Stearns Davis

The conflict lasted long; for the Cornuti and Braccati, [66] veterans of [Pg 117] great experience in war, frightening even by their gestures, shouted their battle cry, and the uproar, through the heat of the conflict, rising up from a gentle murmur, and becoming gradually louder and louder, grew fierce as that of waves dashing against the rocks; the javelins hissed as they flew hither and thither through the air; the dust rose to the sky in one vast cloud, preventing all possibility of seeing, and causing arms to fall upon arms, man upon man.
— from The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus During the Reigns of the Emperors Constantius, Julian, Jovianus, Valentinian, and Valens by Ammianus Marcellinus

She was a fast French sloop, "recruiting" for New Caledonia, as they call it, on one of the New Hebrides, when the Albatross happened to come to anchor, by good luck or good management, in the same harbor.
— from Wednesday the Tenth, A Tale of the South Pacific by Grant Allen